


Code of Conduct

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coffee, Competency, Contracts, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Yay writing!, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:46:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4558230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding Bucky does not go the way anyone expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Нормы поведения](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4673639) by [BlueSunrise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSunrise/pseuds/BlueSunrise)



It’s like every other AIM outpost the Avengers have ever raided, all institutional corridors and mechanical soldiers and scurrying scientists, but they get ambushed just short of the command center and Natasha says, “Go, I’ve got this.” So it’s Steve who reaches the computers first, snatches Tony’s USB gizmo out of his pocket and checks the server screen, and sees Bucky on the webcam. “Holy Moses,” he says, and his knees are shaking, all the stuffing knocked out of him in one sharp blow. There’s a woman shown in a box on the screen, in uniform, heavily made-up and sporting the artificial hair of a modern televangelist, and she’s saying, “Remote bids open in two minutes. Enter your identification code in the box immediately. I repeat, two minutes.” 

“Tony!” Steve yelps, because computers, and then he looks down and there’s a printed code on a scrap of paper by the keyboard and a box on the screen. He slams the numbers in, watches the bar count down, the televangelist says, “Thirty seconds,” and he’s being asked for contract confirmation, credit card details and registered delivery address.

“Tony, I need to borrow your Amex,” Steve says into his comm, very even, and Tony’s voice seems terrifyingly off-hand when he says, “What the hell, Cap? Bit busy here.” 

“Place your bids,” says the televangelist. From above the camera shows Bucky’s face, bruised, with his eyes half-open and his hair matted with blood.

“Please,” Steve says. 

Tony rattles off a string of numbers while the on-screen total leaps from one million to two and then rushes up to seven and a half in a violent flurry. It pauses. Then Bucky tries to open his eyes, shaking his head, and as the total sidles up to ten million, Steve takes a deep breath and hits enter. The figures triple instantly. He waits. Bucky tries to push off the floor and fails. He’s manacled at hands and feet, trapped in some sort of reinforced concrete cell, no visible doors or windows, nothing to say if he’s in Kiev or Nova Scotia or Myanmar. He looks like shit. 

“Do I have any more bids?” asks the televangelist. She waits. The figures do not move. Steve should have added an extra five million. Ten. If he fails now - “Bidders and proxies. For the first time of asking. For the second.” 

If Steve fails, he’ll kill them all. He’ll do it anyway, after he’s found Bucky. 

“Going,” she says. Steve has to stand up. “Going,” she says again. 

Steve can see the white of Bucky’s eyes under his eyelashes, concussion, something worse, maybe drugs, they must have drugged him, and Steve’s empty fingers tell out the absent beads of a rosary as if it was still 1934. 

The figures do not move.

“Gone. Lot 1, sold for thirty million dollars. Bidder kz68897, await processing. Repeat, bidder kz68897, await processing.”

Dazed, Steve clings to the edge of the worktop, his hands biting into steel. The wait lasts forever, an eternity, and although his comm unit tells him Natasha has finished with her AIM ambush and Tony has zeroed in on the robots everything outside this room feels utterly irrelevant. He checks the code again. He’s sure it was those numbers he entered. He’s sure. But if he’s wrong, if he’s lost Bucky again, left him behind, he’ll – he’d tear the world into shreds, except it’d be his own fault..

The screen blanks out. 

“Motherfucking -!” Steve roars, fists clenched, and then there’s a small green cursor blinking at him, “transaction confirmed, await details”.

“What did you just say?” Tony snaps. “Team, you get that? Was I hearing things? Anyone? Cap? You okay?”

“What have you done?” asks Natasha, very quietly, very slow. She’s leaning over his shoulder. 

“Delivery confirmation, priority,” the screen blinks, and then, “tracking number,” and Steve scrabbles for a pen and writes frantically. 

“Steve?” 

“He’s okay,” Natasha reports. “Don’t touch the servers yet, Iron Man.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re shopping,” Tony says, “Some of us are trying to save the world here.” He pauses. The repulsars whine to a pitch which is close to unbearable. Something explodes. Tony comes back amused, he’s fond of explosions. “Baltimore, at least. Cap, if I’d known you wanted an eBay account I’d have set you up. Hell, THURSDAY would do it for you.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Steve promises. His voice sounds a little shaky. He’s a more than a little weak around the knees. Any minute now, he’s going to start wheezing. “Thanks,” he says. “I owe you.”

“No problem,” Tony says breezily. “What was it, vinyl? Curtains? Replica Bucky Barnes?”

Natasha’s taken over the keyboard. Steve’s blood is ringing in his ears. It’s been years since that happened. Decades. Centuries.

Somewhere in Arizona, FedEx has already picked up. The package arrives in Manhattan in eleven hours and forty-five minutes. 

“Too soon?” Tony says. “Sorry.” Then he says, “Am I talking to myself, here?”

Clint says, “Yup.”

“Guys, we’re done,” Natasha says. She must have downloaded the servers and hit self-destruct, the screen’s already crashed into cascading pixels, but Steve can’t look away. Natasha’s hand is on his shoulder, small, steel-hard fingers. “Breathe,” she tells him. “Breathe.” 

Steve shudders. 

“It’s a wrap,” Natasha says into her comm. “We’re out of here. ETA three minutes. Hawkeye, can you-”

“On it,” Clint says, and from somewhere by the hydrology labs the first explosive arrow cracks into concrete. 

“Cap?” 

Standing up, grabbing his shield, Steve is still staring at the screen. Natasha tugs him away until he pulls himself together and begins to jog towards their pick-up zone. Then, run.

“Cap?” Tony asks, belated. “Did you – did you hit the wrong button?”


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere over Maryland, THURSDAY homes in on the shipping code. By the time the delivery truck crosses the bridge, every non-essential security camera on route has been repurposed. 

“He’ll need clothes,” Pepper says. “Shoes.” 

Beside Steve, almost inaudible, Natasha snorts. She and Pepper have a silent conversation in which Natasha asserts the right of all ex-assassins to determine their own clothing and Pepper reiterates the Tower Public Areas no shirt, no shoes, no service policy. Pepper, on home ground, wins. The van passes Macy’s, but gets caught at the lights on 6th and Broadway. Tourists aim phones over their heads, where above the skyscrapers Iron Man curves lazy circles into the pale morning clouds. 

“Hang on in there,” Sam mutters, hand on Steve’s shoulder.

Clint coughs. “Please tell me someone told security,” he says.

“I told security,” Pepper says. 

There’s a box in the top right hand corner of the screen where Iron Man’s infrared detector shows a blur of body heat, which at least suggests that the ex-Hydra assassin Steve hopes he is about to receive is not frozen for delivery. Steve’s eyes flick between feeds. He could do without the stopwatch, constantly recalibrating as traffic ebbs and flows, but it’s always in the corner of his eye. It’s down to four minutes and counting.

“Steve?” Natasha says.

Standing up, Steve has to roll his shoulders. He’s so tense he’s stiff with it, his stride short and awkward as he jogs down the stairs down to the delivery bay. Tony’s already landed, face plate up. There’s a glint from the mezzanine floor. He can’t see Natasha.

The rising security barrier is soundless, but all the lights by the ramp change to green. Steve, empty handed, thinks he should have – his shield? Flowers? Bucky would laugh himself sick. 

Bucky has not been himself for a very long time. He’ll never be the boy Steve grew up with. 

Steve’s not the man he was, either.

The FedEx truck rolls down the ramp and into the parking bay. Tony glances at Steve, but Steve’s – as close to panic as he’s ever been in this century. He shakes his head. 

“Hey!” Tony says to the driver, walking forward. “Priority delivery?”

The driver hasn’t taken his hands off the wheel, eyes fixed on Tony. Soundlessly, as his eyes widen, his mouth shapes, “Oh, my God.” 

“Yeah, yeah, later,” Tony says, brisk. He snaps his fingers for the dispatch pad. “Parcel for Stark, that’s the one. You gonna need a hand with it?”

By the time the driver has the roller up, Steve’s managed to cross the asphalt. They’ve sent him Bucky in a packing case. If it’s Bucky in there. Whatever it is, whoever, it’s heavy. Tony’s robots strain and recalibrate, lifting. Tony himself flashes a spotlight smile at the delivery driver, “No can do. No autographs unless Pepper gives me the pen.” Money changes hands. The two security guards by the shutter have their hands on their holsters, and Steve curls his fingers around the plywood of the case. It’s cool to his touch, and for one moment Steve’s mind flashes back to the first cryo chamber he saw, the one in DC, and he flinches. Tony glances up, and the robots stop, politely, in the middle of the delivery bay. Steve lets go. 

“Heat signature matches,” Natasha says, her voice flat over the comm unit.

“Thanks,” Steve says. Following the robots, he remembers, horribly, trailing behind his mother’s coffin, and as the delivery bay shutters rattle down, before the lights flick on, there’s a moment when he feels as if he’s walking into darkness. Then the robots stop, Tony ducks under the shutter, and everything’s so brightly illuminated the shadows are razor edged. 

“You wanna...” Tony says, and visibly changes his mind. “They weren’t messing around. I’m guessing you don’t want to take a hatchet to the thing, Rogers.” The robots are unscrewing bolts as he talks, servos whirring. “Have to say, this isn’t the way I-”

Steve rips the packing case open, plywood splintering, and slams through the cryo chamber hinges with the edge of his hand. He sends the lid spinning into the furthest corner of the loading bay. There’s no temperature change to the air. The chamber’s not charged.

“-I expected this to go,” Tony finishes, dry. “That works.” The last words are metallic. Iron Man’s faceplate is down.

Contained in steel, Bucky looks like one of the medieval stone knights on the tombs in Westminster Abbey. His eyes are closed, his arms crossed on his chest, his legs rigidly straight. The bruises on his face have faded, but his hair is still matted with dried blood, and close up, his tactical gear looks worn. His boots have creased to the shape of his feet, the leather at his knees is stretched, and the straps of his jacket have worn into grooves around tarnished steel buckles. In one dizzying instant Steve rediscovers the angle of Bucky’s shoulders, the powerful breadth of his gloved hands, and the rakish tilt of the end of his eyebrows. The way he smells, a gut-punch. The unfamiliar creases at the corner of his eyes. 

Steve swallows hard, hands gripped on the edges of the packing case, and says, “Hey.”

“Careful with the goods, there, Cap,” Tony says, warning.

Bucky’s eyes snap open. He’s looking straight up at Steve’s face, as close as they were on the helicarrier. For one electrifying instant Steve knows there’s someone looking back, and then – he’s gone, wiped. There’s nothing in his expression at all, no fear, no surprise, no – ‘Oh, God,’ Steve thinks, although he should have expected nothing different – no recognition. Aching, clawed open by the realization that once again he feels as if the earth has crashed from under his feet and taken his stomach with it, Steve opens his mouth and, for the first time in his life, finds himself speechless.

Bucky moves. Explosive, violent, his armored fist smashes up into Steve’s chin while his right hand flicks towards Tony with a flash of moving steel, a four inch blade that slams into the seam of the suit’s power unit and stays there, vibrating. Steve reels, Tony yelps, and the lights go out. 

“Bucky!” Steve shouts.

“Switch power source!” Tony yells.

Screaming, metal crashes and rends. Bucky’s punched through the shutters, unerringly picking out the weak spot at the door. Dizzy, Steve races after him, diving through the hole Bucky’s left face-first into the recycling dumpster he’s sent skidding over concrete. “Clint!”

Clearly, Bucky’s retained his excellent tactical efficiency. 

“Left and up, Cap,” Clint says. He whistles. “Kick _ass_. Tell me if you want the tranqs,” he adds.

“No! Don’t shoot!” Steve’s racing across the parking bay and leaping for the top of the security wall, and he’s shouting loud enough for his new team and his oldest friend to hear, but Bucky doesn’t look back. He’s climbing fast, his weight on his feet, as limber as a wall rat. All the electrics are still out, because he goes through the barbed wire like it’s made of cotton. Captivated, watching, Steve fumbles a hold, swings off the wall, and loses three and a half seconds.

By the time he gets to the top, Bucky has gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve doesn’t find out until 2011 that Bucky was drafted into their war. He doesn’t find out until 2014 that Bucky’s war never ended.

“The hell?” Tony says. “Are you telling me you’re gonna walk away? Because, have to tell you, that’s not a thing I ever thought.”

“I’m not going to be the next hand on the leash,” Steve says shortly. He looks up. “I’ll pay you back,” he adds, although he’s not sure how. Ask Pepper if she’ll put the word out about those endorsement deals, he guesses.

“What’s thirty mill between friends?” Tony says, dismissive. He taps his fingers on the desk. “Look, Cap, someone’s going to pick him up. Brainwashed amnesiac assassin with temporal issues? Any half-baked terrorist group worth its salt has an all-points bulletin out right now. Are you telling me he’s going to be better off without us?”

“Disorientated defrosted super soldier with temporal issues,” Steve mentions. “Sound familiar?”

“You had SHIELD,” Tony says, and pauses for a moment. “Okay. Yeah. Point.”

Flipping the holoscreen, Steve lets the exploded schematic of Bucky’s arm hang between them. Tony’s replaced the red star with Steve’s shield. It looks like a product brand, like Tony’s planning redemptive super bowl commercials with showgirls and heavy horses. He’ll mean it for the best, he always does. 

“I don’t care if Bucky wants to spend the rest of his life as a short order chef in Nebraska,” Steve says. “If that’s what he wants to do.”

“The thing is,” Tony says, “He doesn’t know that.”

Steve vanishes the screen and its speculative prosthetic with a slammed down hand. “I got no plans,” he says, pointed.

“Sooo...” Sam says later, carefully, feet on the coffee table, microbrew in his hand. “Now we’ve called off the missing person search. Barnes and you. Anything I should know?”

“Nope,” Steve says, reaching for the popcorn. 

He’s grateful for this modern America, where anyone in the life can walk down the street in broad daylight hand in hand, but if he’d been looking for company in the forties it wouldn’t have been hard to find. In Paris....

He’s a long way from the man he was in Paris.

“Bucky doesn’t swing that way,” Steve adds.

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says. “Are you planning on eating all of that popcorn?” he says. “A man’s got needs.” The pitch of his voice doesn’t change. He’s still staring at the screen.

“Is that supposed to be a metaphor?” Steve asks. “Because I thought you VA types were all about caring and sharing.”

“Well, I thought you superhero types were too busy to give a damn,” Sam says, and makes a sneaky grab for the popcorn basin. 

“Sam-” Steve begins.

“I’m saying it’s a-okay over here if you do. Swing that way,” Sam says. “With him. Or anyone else,” he adds. 

“Thanks,” Steve says. After a very long pause when he considers making more popcorn, if getting up and going to the kitchen and making popcorn would be a tactical retreat or could possibly be reframed as an advance in a different direction, if Sam is potentially hitting on him, and what Bucky’s reaction would have been if Steve had opened his big mouth and said, “Hey, Buck, wanna go on a date with me?” 

In any century.

Steve makes popcorn.


	4. Chapter 4

“If this is going to be a problem, tell me now,” Tony says, one hand on Steve’s arm, before the elevator stops.

Steve gives him an incredulous stare.

“Okay, fine, just saying,” Tony says, and waves his hand at the doors.

Beyond them, across the pale, gleaming marble of the lobby, the Winter Soldier kneels. He’s ruthlessly exposed. His head is down, his knees spread, and his hands are clasped on the back of his neck. There’s a mass of darkly glimmering ordnance stacked five feet behind him.

Every security officer on duty is in the lobby, some with weapons braced. None of them are talking. The only thing Steve can hear is the ridiculous trickle of the fountain.

Bucky’s not moving a muscle. 

Neither is Steve. He feels frozen, nothing in him at all, blood, bone, heart, all seized, until from the soles of his feet to the top of his head rolls a scalding wave of relief and joy. Bucky. _Bucky_. Willingly back. Steve’s heart beats, once, and again, struggling, and – beat, beat, beat-beat-beat – tumbles headlong into a fast and steady patter.

“Okay?” Tony mutters.

He’s really not. He has to be. His thoughts stumble. Everything is too sharp, overexposed, the cracked knuckles of the leather of Bucky’s gloves and the shallow rise and fall of his breathing, the angle of the light from the windows and the arrested hiss of the elevator doors. But – Steve takes a deep breath - he knows this ground. Knows its strengths and weaknesses. His key priority has to be everyone’s safety. His key assignment is Bucky. And while they might be on Tony’s turf, this is Steve’s call. 

He coughs. He’s not sure if words are going to come out of his mouth, but they do, easy and controlled. “Thanks, everyone,” he says. “Stand down now, please. Stand down.”

No-one moves.

“Stand down,” he says, with more force to the words. His heart’s settling down. He’s okay. Bucky’s waiting for him. 

Slowly, the security guards start to holster their weapons. Steve gives them the briefest of acknowledgements. He doesn’t want to look away from Bucky’s face, his chin, his nose, the sweep of dark hair that hides his eyes. Fear, acid-sharp, curls around the edges of a mind map of escape routes Bucky could take, and how Steve could stop him. Quantifies the watching guards and Tony with his hand in his pocket and the three-point-two seconds it would take him to suit up, the breaking strain on the bulletproof glass and the exposed sidewalk and the nearest cover. If they make it as far as the subway, they could make it – home, Steve thinks.

His footsteps echo on the marble, but Bucky doesn’t twitch. Maybe he’s here to stay, Steve thinks. Maybe – he can be Bucky’s refuge, his friend, his – he’ll be anything.

Right now, he has to at least look like he knows what he’s doing.

“Hey,” he says, just as he did three days ago.

Bucky looks up. He doesn’t raise his head, just his eyes, grey and bleak, guarded. His tactical gear is pin-point sharp, his boots polished., his hair combed and his hands scrubbed. He’s clean shaven, his skin so smooth he must have set a blade to it less than an hour ago. 

Steve’s stomach feels as if it knots, frays apart, and performs a small gymnastic routine with iron billiard balls. 

“Glad you came back,” Steve says. So casual. “You wanna stand up?” It does things to him, seeing Bucky on his knees. Not good things.

Bucky says, “I brought the contract.” His voice is flat.

“What?” Steve says, wrong-footed, the hand he’s held out caught, unwanted, in empty air. He pulls it back.

“Are your guys gonna shoot me if I hand it over?” Bucky says. He’s clearly lost none of his ability to read Steve’s face. Either that, or it’s blatantly obvious to everyone Steve has no idea that there was a contract.

“Go slow,” Steve says.

Bucky’s face looks like he’s trying very hard not to roll his eyes, which is definitely an improvement on ice-cold assassin, and Steve can play the fall guy all his life if this it what it takes. That tiny spark of amusement feels like a lifeline. He clings to it, as Bucky reaches very, very slowly into his pocket and pulls out a much folded sheaf of papers. He holds it up, hands blatantly weaponless, while half the security guards in the lobby lower their guns and the other half, less trusting, tighten their grip.

“Thanks,” Steve says, and takes the paper. He doesn’t unfold it. He says, “Let’s talk.” There’s a small cafe just past the reception, with a clear route to the exit and enough glass walls that it feels open even if the windows are bullet-proof..

“Not the reaction I was expecting,” Bucky says. 

“I’m not most people,” Steve says. He waits.

It’s so smooth, the way Bucky stands, all the dangerous power of his body restrained into grace. Stilled, he’s as solid as a tank. But he’s – he smells of soap and gun oil and leather, and although the set of his shoulders is rigid and the angle of his chin stone solid, his hands are the same, and the soft, generous curve of his lower lip, which he’d always hated and Steve had secretly loved.

Steve’s fists clench. He has to shove his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, and knows that the slow tide of vengeful hate he feels then is a darker and bloodier urge than anything he’s ever felt before. He’s always fought an honorable war, been the soldier he wanted to be, but for Bucky – if Steve ever catches anyone who laid a hand on Steve’s best friend, anyone who helped turn him into this honed, blank weapon, stole who Bucky was - Steve will shred their bleeding guts before their own eyes. 

This _weapon_. Bucky, Steve thinks. Bucky changed, as Steve has been, but still Bucky, and right now a Bucky who needs someone he can trust. 

“Do I need a first aid kit?” he asks. “Coffee’s this way.”

“Uh – no?” Bucky says. “Everything works.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Steve says, mildly, holding the cafe door open. Rita has probably been hustled away by security, but she’s left a full carafe of coffee on the counter and there’s a little pot of cream, which has to be for Bucky because Steve takes his black. He takes both, and he needs a couple of mugs, and sugar, and spoons, and he’s not letting go of Bucky’s paperwork – “Here,” Steve says, passing over the mugs. Bucky takes them stiffly, his metal hand clinking against earthenware, and Steve can see the frown line deepen between his eyes.

He collects sugar and a spoon, raging.

“It’s – I’m fine,” Bucky says, still frowning at the mugs as if no-one’s passed him coffee since 1943. “Rogers, I didn’t come here for...” He huffs. “I’m not your friend. You don’t have to sweet talk me, I’m here.”

“Well, forgive me if I want to know what we’re signing up to,” Steve says. He frowns at the security guards outside the glass walls until they shuffle backwards all of three feet, sets everything out, and sits down. It’s been a while since he was unsure what to do with the length of his legs. 

Bucky’s stiff. He shuffles the chair, uneasy and hiding it well, although his mouth gives him away every time. Always has. Steve gives him a moment or two, pours the coffee, raises an eyebrow and waggles the jug, and when Bucky just stares at him adds cream and sugar the way Bucky used to take it seventy years ago. 

Then he smooths the print-out down on the table. “Okay,” he says. 

Bucky’s focus snaps back. “Standard maintenance clause,” he says. “You might want to get Stark to look at that one. Medical. Indemnity insurance – that’s gonna be the one that costs you. Weapons. It’s up to you, but we’ll both suffer if I’m not up to date. Training. You gotta be careful with that one, I don’t know the whole of whatever shit they put in my head. Nutrition – that one’s kinda odd, but-”

“Buck,” Steve says. “I don’t even know what half of this stuff means.”

“You got a lawyer, ain’t you?”

“Neurotoxin tolerances? Baseline nociceptor trigger rates?”

Bucky shrugs. “You gotta know how hard you can push,” he says. He hasn’t touched his coffee. “What you’re getting.”

“I know who you are,” Steve says.

“The hell you do,” says Bucky. Unflinching, he meets Steve’s glare head-on. “Don’t kid yourself. You pick up that contract, you got your finger on the trigger. This ain’t some grand reunion scene, pal. You gotta understand-”

“Don’t you pull that shit with me, Bucky Barnes,” Steve says, and he’s – he looks away, ducks his head, is going to grin, is grinning. He can’t help it, because this belligerent protectiveness is all Bucky, his own Bucky. Although Steve would have welcomed and loved the shell of a man he’d seen on the helicarrier, it doesn’t have to be that way. The relief is stunning. “You’re here because you want to be. I’m good with that.”

Exasperated, Bucky slams his palm on the table. “For the love of God, Rogers, you know from _nothing_ \- ah, _shit_.”

The table has not reacted well to Bucky’s metal arm. It’s collapsing, legs splintering, folding down to the tiles. Steve’s pushing back his chair, grabbing for the coffee mugs. Bucky snatches the contract paperwork before it’s all over cream. He holds it at arm’s length, between finger and thumb, watching the drips fall from one corner. 

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Steve tries for an ironic raised eyebrow, but his grin has shaded towards sniggering and it probably shows. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky says.

“Napkins behind you,” Steve says, and stacks pieces of table where no-one’s going to trip over them. “There’s a mop just behind the counter, pass it over.”

“You just can’t let someone do their job in peace, can you,” Bucky grumbles. He presses down hard on a stack of paper tissues, blotting cream. 

“You pissed because you spoiled your own punch line?”

Bucky snorts. “It was gonna be a good one,” he says. “You’ll never know.”

“You’ll tell me,” Steve says. He squeezes out the mop and reaches for the dustpan Bucky sends scooting along the floor. “I get it,” he says, sweeping up china. “You want rules. You want something safe-”

“Ain’t-”

“Structured,” Steve says quickly. “Yeah?” It’s offhand, a get-out clause. Bucky could pretend he hadn’t heard. “Something that lasts,” he adds.

There’s a long silence. Steve wraps the broken china in newspaper and makes one final pass with the mop. “Come on,” he says. There’s a pen behind the till. He picks it up, spinning it in his fingers showy as a cheerleader. “Pass it over.”

“идиот,” Bucky mutters.

“Bucky.”

“Fine,” Bucky says, unpeels the napkins, and passes over the contract, slightly soggy.

“Anything in here I need to know about?” Steve says, pen poised. 

Bucky scowls. Steve, defiant, ignores the sudden and insistent beeping in his ear, flicks to the last page and signs below a spiky, cramped imitation of Bucky’s familiar scrawl. With a flourish. While his communicator gives out a despairing wail, he heels over a stool and starts ticking off clause after clause. “You missed a trick. Nothing in here about darning your socks.” 

“Comes under wear and tear,” Bucky says, resigned. 

“And the one where you don’t pick my dates?”

“Full mission disclosure,” Bucky says. He pulls up his own stool. 

“Mandatory body armor?”

“Always did like the uniform,” Bucky says, and reaches for his coffee. His eyes close when he takes the first sip, and the lines of his cheeks tighten, the way they do when he’s hiding a smile.

“Field rations to form no more than forty percent of provisions on active service, yup,” Steve says. He looks up.“They got freeze dried apple pie now, you know that?”

“Bet it still tastes like-”

“Appropriate sexual release!” Steve squeaks. He can feel himself flush. “What the - what-” He stares at the page, but the words are still there in black and white. “Bucky. I can’t sign up to this. I can’t.”

“Rogers, you already did,” Bucky says. He’s balancing the stool on two legs, perfectly comfortable, staring Steve down. “I’m okay with that,” he says.


	5. Chapter 5

“Incoming two o’clock,” Bucky says, sharp in Steve’s ear.

Steve throws without looking, tracks the thud and clatter of a successful strike, and spins to catch his shield on the rebound. A doombot hits the sidewalk, sparking. “Anyone got eyes on Doom yet?” he asks. 

“Power drain end of fourth,” Natasha says. 

“He only shows up when it’s time to tell us we’re all doooomed,” says Clint.

“He’s staying at the Plaza,” Tony says. “Probably in the spa right now.”

There’s a pause while they all contemplate Doom having his toe-nails buffed. 

“Thanks, Iron Man,” Steve says. He knocks out two more doombots. It’s a little like bowling, doombots are herd creatures, not yet progressing much past rudimentary strategy. 

“Hey, Barnes,” Clint says. “Score?”

“Sixteen,” says Bucky. 

“Damn,” says Clint. 

“Twenty-two,” says Natasha. 

“Are you guys on steroids?” Sam asks suspiciously.

“Twenty-three,” says Natasha.

Steve’s not counting. He stops a bot just about to smash through the window of the Japanese tea shop with the tiny bean cakes, and slam-dunks one turning in circles, servos whining, one of Clint’s arrows sticking out of its faceplate. Then he gets the one just about to knock over the fire hydrant, and the one with the laser, and then he rounds East 84th and there’s a whole battalion of doombots drawn up outside the Met as if they’re on parade. 

“Wait for your fucking team!” Bucky hisses.

“You think they’re gonna wait?” says Steve, adds a reflexive and pointless, “Comms, Buck,” and launches himself at the ranks. He’s not surprised when Bucky barrels into the rearguard thirty seconds later. Then Sam appears overhead with one of Tony’s new EMP lasers, and it’s a glorious shared melee. Bucky wins hands-down with that twisting move he has, spinning bots so quickly he’s taking out three or four at a time, but Sam’s wings gave him the edge in spotting the ones that had decided to fight again another day and were sloping off to lurk in Central Park. 

“Buck, you gotta teach me that move,” Steve says, when they meet up at the overturned coffee cart. 

“What, now?” asks Bucky, stabbing a tall, thin bot with one of the awning poles and leaping into a shoulder-high scissor kick as he does. His boots slam a reddish bot into Steve’s stubborn purple one, which is just enough momentum to set purple’s head rocking, so Steve finally gets in a decent hit on the wiring and it explodes in a satisfying fountain of sparks. He takes out two more bots on the adrenalin surge, throws down the little one with the forcebeam hard enough to short out its neighbors, and then skims his shield straight down the front line. Fifteen bots fall over. “Whoa,” Bucky says. “Jackpot!” He sends Steve a flying salute, knocks out the square one with the black stripes, and says, “Widow?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Hot damn,” Bucky says, and wolf whistles. 

“Just for that, it’s your turn to buy the pizza,” Natasha flings back.

“Not in my contract,” Bucky says smugly, knocking the last three bots standing towards Steve one at a time.

Steve, exasperated, uses a little more force than necessary. One of the bots, expiring, explodes. His eyebrows singe. “Bucky,” he says.

“Cap,” Bucky says. He’s looking at Steve, straightening up, standing in the middle of a battlefield surrounded by downed doombots, tangled metal and sparking wires and smashed paving slabs. Six weeks of sleeping, eating, and sprawling across Steve’s carpet in patches of sunlight have given him a few more pounds, the beginnings of a tan, and occasionally, sometimes, if Steve catches him at the right moment, at the right angle – relaxed his face. The rest of him – well, Steve’s always had a soft spot for a dangerous man. He’s got a softer spot for Bucky, and this Bucky, the one that came back to him dangerously honed and damaged and still himself, he’s a goddamn miracle.

Helplessly, Steve smiles back.

“Looks like it’s you buying, Cap,” Clint says. “What’s that clause, Barnes? The one where it says keep your ice box stocked and the pizza coming, or else?”

“Six. Combat nutrition,” Bucky says. “You SHIELD numbskulls should’ve renegotiated.” 

“Yeah, right,” Clint says. “I can see Fury signing off on that one, for sure.”

“Hey,” Tony protests, “Like we’re gonna run out of Ben & Jerry’s any time soon!”

“It’s always sweeter when it’s someone else’s,” says Natasha. “You guys finished up there? We’ve got a couple of bots down here with some kind of forcefield and Iron Man can’t get close. Wanna stretch your legs in this direction?”

They’re already running. 

Bucky came in from the cold equipped with a chilling portfolio of destructive skills, a tendency to spend hours in the shower, and an appetite for everything he’d missed in the last seventy years. Food, movies, music. Steve. He’d regained, tattered but still gleaming, the charm he’d always deployed for both of them, and hand-in-hand with it an infuriating and manipulative cussedness. “We’ll beat this together,” he quotes, after the Doombots, drawling, leaning back in his chair with his booted legs propped on the conference table. “Which does not translate into ‘I’m gonna jump out of this window and hope the rest of you catch up’, Rogers.”

“It worked,” Steve protests. “I knew where you were.”

“Yeah, and what happens the day I’m not there?” Bucky says. 

Maria glares at both of them. “Avengers,” she snaps. “Debrief sessions are for debriefing, not squabbling.”

“Yeah, keep your domestics to yourselves,” Clint says. “I’d like out of this uniform sometime today.”

Tony sniggers. “You get to _debrief_ Cap later, Barnes? Clause fifteen, right?”

“That was privileged information,” Steve says, stung. 

“Oh, come on,” Tony says. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to peek?” He pauses. “That’s disturbing. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. Just because someone’s got a surprisingly filthy mind.”

Bucky’s smile lurks, wicked and dirty. “You only just realized?”

“Bucky.”

“Ask him about the stockings,” Bucky says. 

“ _Bucky_.”

“Operation get Cap laid,” Bucky says. 

“Bucky!”

“So,” Bucky says.

Steve knows how this story goes. But he hasn’t seen that smile for far too long, and Bucky’s always known how to pitch to his audience. That tiny flicker of his eyes – he must know he has them hooked by Tony’s broadening grin and Clint’s rising eyebrows, and Natasha’s mouth curling up at the corner.

Steve rocks his chair back and stares hard at the buckles of Bucky’s boots.

“So,” Bucky says, “We’re in some little _maison_ outside Lille – that was before Bradley got his act together, so technically we’re behind enemy lines. We thought we had Cap set up all fine and dandy. But it turns out the Luftwaffe thought the house girls were their girls, which was for shit anyway, most of ‘em were in the Resistance. There’s no way in hell we’re negotiating with Nazi flyboys, so the boys gear up, and we’re just about gaining ground when some Oberleutnant decks Falsworth. He falls though Cap’s door, and Cap’s sketching her,” Bucky says. “Lisette.” Suddenly, all the lines of Bucky’s body are languid, sliding into elegance. Glancing at Steve, he drops his eyelashes, fluttering, coy. He slides his legs off the table, real slow, the long line of his thighs on display as he unrolls imaginary silk stockings. “Sketching,” Bucky says, the word rolling slow and obscene off his tongue, right alongside the illustrative burlesque flourish of an invisible stocking plucked from his toes. 

The moment strings Steve out. It always does, every time, that playful eroticism that snatches his breath away. He can’t take his eyes off Bucky’s face, the tiny, smug lift to the corner of his mouth, the narrow glint of his veiled eyes.

Steve’s cold. Then, flushed, all over.

“Lisette’s in her underwear,” Bucky says. “There was a lot of parachute silk around, and – anyway-” he’s all Bucky again, snapped back and sharp – “Cap cusses Falsworth out for blocking the light, and Madame’s caught sight of the tank patrol and she’s screaming, and the rest of us are running around like blue-assed flies knocking out the Luftwaffe and looking for those panzerfursts we stole off the Wehrmacht, and Cap takes one look and says, ‘Just finishing up, boys, and slams the door-” Bucky stops, looking around the table at some very, very intent Avengers. He shrugs. “Maybe you had to be there.” But his grin says he’s said exactly what he wanted to say.

“Well,” says Tony.

“Just out of interest,” says Natasha, “What was Steve wearing?”

“Nothing,” Bucky says.

Sam drops his head in his hands.

Tony opens his mouth again, and Steve says. “Sergeant. _Upstairs_.”


	6. Chapter 6

“So I can’t tell a blue story?” Bucky asks, his voice echoing behind Steve on the stairwell. “Come on.”

“It’s not that,” Steve said, and went from taking the stairs two at a time to three.

“What, you got them thinking you’re squeaky clean?”

“Some things are private,” Steve snaps, who does not care in least if Bucky wants to splash his dating history across a screen in Times Square, but is not prepared to parade his confused, inescapable hard-on for James Buchanan Barnes in front of his whole team. Steve is as hard as hell, the beat of blood in his dick as powerful as his pulse, his uniform chafing, his balls heavy and hot. If anyone looks at him, they’ll know. Bucky will know. Bucky – oh God, Steve thinks, as his mind replays for him in excruciating technicolor the elegant, powerful curve of Bucky’s thighs.

“Well, that sure as hell wasn’t a secret,” Bucky says. 

Steve takes a deep breath. “Buck,” he says, opening the door. “I – there are times when I look around and you’re there and I can’t believe how lucky I am.” He’s ground to a halt in front of the couch, but Bucky keeps straight on going, direct route to the coffee maker. Bucky likes coffee. “I mean, you’re-”

“Spit it out,” Bucky says. “None of that good news, bad news crap. You seen the filters?”

“New packet,” Steve says. “By the grinder.” He uncurls his fists. He can’t do anything about the hot mess in his head. His dick aches, cruel and sharp. “I swear to God,” he mutters, “Every time you tell that story...”

“Hey,” says Bucky absently. He’ll be glaring at the coffee maker, willing it to hurry. “Lisette was fine. Morita got one hell of shiner, though.”

“I know that!” Steve says. “I was there!” 

“Well,” says Bucky reasonably. “What?”

“Every time!” Steve says. “Every single time, your legs, and the – the eyelashes, like - but it’s you, and- oh, hell,” he says, and collapses onto the couch. He has chain of command, here. He’s the one responsible. He can’t take advantage. 

Expensively sturdy, infuriatingly solid, the couch takes his weight without flinching. 

“You like that bit?” Bucky says.

Steve can’t look around, but he can hear the smile in Bucky’s voice.

“I always thought you did,” Bucky says, satisfaction sliding into the words. “That’s why – I kinda practiced that one,” he says, his voice dropping, confidential.

Steve stares at his hands. He should be pleased. He should be so thankful that Bucky remembers, that he gets to see Bucky do that thing again, the one he does with that story, with the legs, and the way his fingers linger on the inner curve of his knee and his mouth, Jesus, his mouth.

Something clatters on the countertop. Bucky’s mouth will be pursued. He’s so careful in this new century, every touch weighted, cautious. The coffee machine beeps. The refrigerator door opens and closes. That snap is the sugar jar, three spoonfuls, the way Bucky’s always drunk coffee, the same rattle of the spoon in the mug. 

“I am so gone for you,” Steve mutters helplessly, his voice so low he knows Bucky won’t hear. Half-hopes he does.

Bucky says. “It was okay, yeah? No-one’s laughing at you.” 

These days, Bucky is silent when he moves. Steve glances up, and he’s there, sitting on the edge of the table, his knees inches from Steve’s and his eyes, worried tight at the edges, fixed on Steve’s face.”I wouldn’t.”

It’s not Bucky’s job to reassure Steve. It’s Steve’s job to reassure Bucky, to make a safe space and stick to the plan and be predictable and reliable and supportive. Bucky fronts like a champion, but he wakes up screaming two nights out of three. “I know,” Steve says, while he clenches his hands in the couch cushions and his dick throbs with every heartbeat. He drags up a smile. “I trust you. I like you remembering. I’m glad you told that story.”

“Sure,” Bucky says.

Steve takes a deep breath. “It’s not your fault I got some wires crossed in my head.” He crosses his legs at the same time, but it’s a mistake, the seam of his uniform cuts into his balls and the pain is so exquisite it’s almost pleasure. 

The way Bucky’s eyebrows curl at the edges, frowning, is so deeply skeptical. Bucky’s always known when Steve was lying. 

“And...it’s kind of nice, being...being a whole person. Not being the only one who remembers.” Lame and stumbling, Steve soldiers on. He tries to think of how damaged Bucky is, how damaged they both are, how he’s not, he’s not going risk loosing his best friend because he can’t discipline his own body. He’s ashamed of himself.

“I’m not seeing the but in that sentence,” Bucky says. He’s got his eyes fixed on Steve’s face. “Spit it out.”

“Did you have to tell them about Lille?”

“Pal, there wasn’t a G.I. in Normandy who didn’t know that story,” Bucky says. He pulls a face, rueful, and reaches out. Steve must have been frowning, because Bucky’s pushing hard at the line between his eyes. The ball of his thumb is hard, calloused, and for a moment they could be in a cold-water walkup in Brooklyn, because the way Bucky looks at him, that mixture of worry and affection, is achingly familiar.

“You don’t know what you want, do you?” Bucky says, very soft.

Steve doesn’t know what to think. He looks at Bucky, staring back at him, and his toes curl in his boots and he can feel his thighs start to warm, his belly, his lungs tighten, as if something extraordinary is just about to happen.

Bucky smiles at him, and pulls his hand back. “It’s your turn to cook,” he says.


	7. Chapter 7

“It’s not hard to do your own laundry!” Steve tells the closed door, with some force.

“I’m bad with color,” Bucky tells him, slightly muffled.

“And it’s always my turn to make dinner!” Steve adds.

Bucky says, “We both know I can’t boil an egg. And since when did I ever polish your boots? Steve.”

“I didn’t say that,” Steve says.

“I said it for you,” Bucky says, a little louder. 

When he opens the door, Steve has to step back in a hurry, hobbling.

“You’ll be in the ops room,” Bucky says, patient. “It’s in the terms of engagement. You have a full briefing. We’ve been over this more times than Omaha Beach.”

“I know,” Steve says, attempting to look nonchalant while assessing every inch of Bucky’s tactical gear and Bucky inside it, the set of his shoulders and the exasperated thrust to his chin.

“It’s your own fault,” Bucky says, glancing down at the heavy strapping around Steve’s knee.

“I know,” Steve says.

“I’ve done this before,” Bucky says. “Are you gonna back off and trust me or do you want me to empty out my pockets to prove I’ve got enough spare ammo?”

Steve huffs out a breath, looks away.

“Steve,” Bucky says.

“Tell me you’re coming back.” The words are an order, but Steve feels as if he’s stripping himself bare.

The plates on Bucky’s arm shimmer as he moves, soundless and indestructible. “I’m coming back,” he says, swiftly, easily, as if there can be no possible doubt. “I’m always coming back. I got a contact to prove it. Tied us up all legal. No getting out of it.” He’s checking gun after gun, snap and click, safety off, safety on, automatic and easy. “You just make sure you’re still here.” He looks up, dark eyes pin-point sharp.

“I’m your mission leader, Buck, I’m not leaving the ops room,” Steve tells him. 

He steps aside to let Bucky through the front door, and accidentally reveals his old SHIELD combat gear, packed and ready to go. Bucky’s eyelashes don’t even flicker, he’s that good, but he kicks the shield up with his boot and slams it onto Steve’s back.

Steve says, “Okay.” Than he adds, “Don’t drop your earpiece.”

The door’s closing. Bucky looks back, poised, lethal, armored. Himself. He nods.


	8. Chapter 8

“Should’ve put a _do not disclose_ in the contract,” Tony says. “If you don’t want Barnes airing your dirty linen in public.”

“Not a problem,” Steve says.

“Huh,” Tony says. He nods, quick and sharp, eyebrows arched. “Noted.”

Tony’s a civilian. He doesn’t, can’t understand that Steve and Bucky have always had the same standing orders. 

“Pepper wrote her own contract, when she took on the company,” Tony says, quiet. 

It’s such a non-sequitur Steve has to glance around, turning away from his screen. Tony’s tapping away at a keyboard, eyes on the multiple feeds suspended in front of him, as concentrated as if he hadn’t said a word. Bucky’s head-cam holds steady on the east side, Clint’s focus is razor sharp on the west, and Bruce, back from Chad, is reading in reserve: his camera shows his hands on his tablet and an online journal. There’s the outside of half a dozen low buildings, and multiple interior shots where uniformed Hydra personnel progress in regulated patterns. It’s a small outpost, LaBreaux, and for the team today is more of a reconnaissance mission than a full scale assault. They need an accurate picture of Hydra’s response to attack. Adherence to immutable operational strategy means that Hydra has the capacity to replicate all over the globe, but it also means that if the Avengers understand and predict that strategy it will become, not a strength, but a fatal weakness. 

It costs Steve to play a waiting game. But Tony looks as if he’s in his element, his hands dancing over images, showy and exaggerated, a good-time mask Tony pulls on at the flick of a switch.

And then Steve realizes what Tony has actually said. The depth of trust it must have taken, for both of them, in their public roles and their private lives. Pepper must have known Tony would ignore every condition she made: Tony, Steve thinks, has never met a rule he wouldn’t break. Between them Tony and Pepper encompass so many different people Steve sometimes wonders how they’re ever themselves in their own skin, but they know each other. They love each other.

“Pepper-” it doesn’t sound right. “I have a great deal of respect for Miss Potts,” Steve says firmly.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Me too.” After a minute he offers, “Your sergeant’s a useful guy to have around.”

It’s almost sentimental. Steve’ll take it. “Thanks,” he says. “I’ll tell him.”

“So. Are we done bonding?” Tony says, “You want one last run-through before we hit go?”

Tony’s already taken control of the admin systems, had done so before their ground force ever assembled, and Steve has the codes for stopping Hydra’s knock-out gas and their black-out lighting and his finger on the button in case of emergencies. Bucky’s got infra-red, Clint has tracers and flares, they both have gas-masks, Steve should have more faith.

“No, I’m good,” he says, and knocks his mic back to live. “Team, let’s go.”

Clint says, “Ten four, Cap.” 

Bucky explodes the door. 

“Shit!” Clint says, and hits his own detonator.

“Give me your report right now, Sergeant,” Steve snaps into his mic. It’s never Bucky’s language that worries him. It’s his silence, the isolated, violent loneliness of the Winter Soldier.

“You can damn well see what I’m doing,” Bucky says.

There’s a tiny camera tucked behind his ear, and Tony’s cracked Hydra’s feed, so the split images on Steve’s screen give him a better overview than if he was by Bucky’s side. But the images don’t talk back.

“Tell me you’re good,” Steve says.

“I’m fucking copacetic,” Bucky says, as on camera, Hydra’s response team is decimated. 

The camera jerks. Bucky’s running, scored by the muted staccato exchange of insults Tony and Clint call mission communication. Corridors come and go. Bucky surfs a staircase. Another one. His breathing hasn’t changed, but Steve’s white knuckled. It’s worse watching someone he loves in danger. Much worse. 

“I can hear you,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, well,” Steve mutters.

“Okay, fine. Watch me not sticking my head around this corner and getting myself shot,” Bucky mutters, pointed, sweeping the latest corridor with a brief spray of automatic fire and watching the doubled reflection in the interior windows. On screen, he fires one-handed and absorbs the recall as if it’s nothing.“Watch and learn. Okay, it’s clear, let’s go, we got five doors, labs left and offices right, target located.”

He carries on giving Steve a sotto voice commentary, increasingly relaxed, as he and Clint push deeper underground. They’ve reached level five, Clint over on the east side cheerfully exploding workshops, Bucky on the west with the communication labs, both of heading for the stand-alone local server on level six. “On time, on target, no jumping out of windows...”

“That’s because there are no windows,” Steve says, stung.

“Shuddup and let me concentrate,” Bucky says. “Hey, Cap, how many dumb blondes does it take to change a light bulb?”

“Bucky,” Steve says.

“None – he just sticks his finger in the socket,” says Bucky, sniggering. “Hang onto your hat, kid, I’m gonna-” His voice is lost in a burst of machine gun fire, but Bucky, flat on his belly behind the cover of a cleaning trolley, bullets slamming into the wall where he was standing, grins up at the camera and gives an Churchill V with his metal fingers. Then he snaps the brakes off the trolley, dives on top, and hurtles down the corridor with a gun in each hand. 

When Steve rolls his eyes, Tony’s hiding a grin, although he’s already looking back at the cameras following Clint’s sturdy figure.

“Okay,” Bucky says, “Bang, two dead Hydra. Must have come up the elevator cables. So I’m gonna blow out the doors and guard my rear, seeing as how my backup fucked his knee jumping out of a window. See, Cap, the trick is getting out afterwards – anyone can get in, this ain’t exactly Fort Knox.” Shattered plaster splatters across the camera lens, the sound cutting out for a second. “Ever notice how these guys always work in groups? Guess the rest of them’ll be tucked up behind that door, safe and-”

“Maybe not,” Bucky adds, as the door buckles under fire from his semiautomatic. He’s right. There’s a huddle of bodies stretched across the floor behind. “Should’ve kept moving,” he says, abstractly critical, already striding on.

“I can’t decide if that’s hot or terrifying,” Tony mutters.

“Stark, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Bucky says, sardonic. He flattens his left hand on the barred level six door, the one to the underground caverns, as if he’s feeling the strength of the metal. Pulls it back. “I’m here. Hawkeye?”

“I’d prefer a body count in justifiable proportions,” Tony says, very dry. Bringing the decimated remains of SHIELD under the umbrella of Stark Industries has left him an uneasy legacy. “Comms down the moment you go through the doors, Avengers. Do not set the sprinklers off until you’ve hit that server.”

“Copy. In position,” Clint says.

“Cap?”

“With you,” Steve says.

“Go,” Bucky says, and brings his fist down.


	9. Chapter 9

“Ain’t I seen your face before?” Bucky squints. 

“Once or twice,” Steve says. He’s taken the rails down and has his feet propped up on the bed, his bad knee cushioned by a spare pillow. “What was that line about dumb blondes and light bulbs?”

Bucky has concussion, or at least, given his version of the serum, has probably had concussion, according to Tony’s Dr Chaudhrey, and is now swiftly recovering. He has a black eye and a lump on the crown of his head the size of a goose egg, and is shortly to be severely embarrassed by the circumstances under which he attained both.

“If you’re tryin’ to be funny, I guess I’m not dying,” Bucky says. 

“Nope,” Steve says. “You’re fine, give or take a bump or two. Mission complete. I can’t say the same about the M Line.”

“Ah, fuck,” Bucky says, dropping his head back on the pillow.

“‘Clause seventeen, all mission plans shall include adequate back-up, reserve and fall-back planning,’” Steve recites. “‘Plans to be adhered to by all signatories, subject to combat conditions and irrespective of misplaced heroism, unnecessary self-sacrifice, or unconsidered action.’ You missed out the penalty clause,” he adds. 

“It doesn’t count if it’s not actually my action,” Bucky points out. “Or yours,” he adds.

“Fair of you,” Steve says. He rocks his feet against Bucky’s thigh. The hospital bed creaks, and something electronic in the corner beeps, insistent.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, strained.

“The line needed a rebuild anyway,” Steve says. “A few more elevators for the wheelchair guys. Security. Coffee shop, maybe. Diner. An oyster bar.”

Bucky’s eyes are closed. Steve watches his eyebrows twitch together, the puzzled little frown line. He shouldn’t be in pain, the readings are base line, and that formula had worked for Steve.

It turns out Bucky was just thinking. “I didn’t write that clause for me,” he says. 

Confession time. “I know that,” Steve says. He wriggles his toes a little further under Bucky’s thighs, and ducks his head.

“Are you laughing?” Bucky says, suspicious.

“No,” Steve says.

“Have you any idea how long it took me to write that – did you have a tracker on me?” He struggles up onto his elbows.

“Didn’t need to,” Steve says, still trying to hide his grin. “We already had the cameras, and THURSDAY has facial recognition. We followed you up to 79th, and then I asked Tony to stop. Your choices are your own. But I knew you were okay when you-”

“I knew the library was a mistake.”

“No, I knew before, when you bought the bagel,” Steve said. “Plain. Lox.” It’s the way Bucky had always taken his bagels. “Let me get that pillow sorted before you lean back.”

“It wasn’t even a good bagel,” Bucky says. “Eleven and a half hours in that fucking coffin waiting to see if it really was you. Had to think about something.” He lies back easy when, pillows straight, Steve pushes at his shoulder.

“How did you do it?”

“What?”

“The...” Steve lets his hand stay in place and grips Bucky’s arm, reminding himself that they’re both okay, a little battered, fine. Fine, really, for certain definitions of the word, he thinks as his knee twinges and when Bucky turns his head on the pillow it’s clear that the skin around his left eye is shading towards purple. “The auction. The cell.”

“Filmed it that morning, so the newspaper headlines were – you didn’t catch that bit, right? So, yeah, we filmed-”

“We?”

“That was Grace,” Bucky says. “Grace Musto. She’s a film studies student. Comes from Sacramento. I’ll introduce you, you’ll like her.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Steve mutters. Then he realizes – “Bucky. You knew I was there.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Webcam goes both ways.”

Steve can’t say anything. He’s not staring down at that screen and seeing Bucky’s face, helpless and wounded, but for a moment he feels as if he is and the anger he felt – the grief and the rage - echo through his mind. It helps, knowing Bucky set up that whole scene. But that moment, when he thought Bucky was helpless and imprisoned again – “Never again,” Steve says. “I am ordering you. Never again.”

“Hey,” Bucky says. “Hey. Hey, Steve, it’s okay, I’m – I’m – you’re-”

“You planned it,” Steve forces out.

“Yes,” Bucky says. He’s gone very still. “I didn’t know. If they had you. I had to be sure. I knew – I had to get the timing spot-on, had to, and if you hadn’t made it, I – I wasn’t sure if I’d have another chance, it took a lot to set that one up-”

“Why didn’t you just come home?” Steve says. 

“I needed to know you were free,” Bucky says, starkly plain. “And if – if they did have you, if the Avengers were just another front – another head – if I walked up to you in the street and said, Hey pal, it’s me, how long do you think both of us would last? How would I know I wasn’t putting your head in a trap? Or if-” Bucky’s shivering. “I had to know it was you. Had to watch you. Had to know you were...you.”

His _they_ hangs between them, cloaked in horror, amorphous and faceless.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Okay. Okay.” He’s holding on now with both hands, bent over, his head next to Bucky’s and Bucky’s arm heavy and tight on his back. 

“And don’t you forget,” Bucky says fiercely. “You’re the guy with the plan. I’m the guy that makes it work. You wanna jump out a plane, I’m the guy checking your parachute. You understand me?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. His cheek is against Bucky’s, stubble prickling, intimate. 

“I’m your friend,” Bucky says.

“I know,” Steve says. He lets himself hold on, just a little bit longer, until Bucky’s grip eases. It would be so easy – all he has to do is turn his head – and he’s suddenly aware that the doctors will be along soon for one last check. But when he leans back, Bucky’s hand drifts over his shoulder and then through his hair, and Steve, Steve presses back into his touch. Bucky’s face is soft at the edges, his eyes half-lidded. 

Someone in high heels walks past the open door. There are two phones ringing, and then a man’s voice, gratingly calm. A trolley rattles, wheels squeaking. Steve lets himself feel, awed, how grateful he is that Bucky’s here, and how it felt to know Bucky was alive and lose him all over again. 

“Did you have to hit quite that hard?” he asks, rueful.

“Wouldn’t want you to think I was comin’ in easy,” Bucky says. 

“Didn’t think you were coming in at all, Buck,” Steve says. He can say it now, and it’s meant to come out smooth, sound like it’s all okay, but his voice still catches on the words. 

“Sorry,” Bucky says. 

He’s smiling a little, that wry little quirk of his mouth Steve’s seeing more and more often, not the flashing smile Steve remembers but this one, he likes. He smiles back.

“And I wanted you to know what you were getting into,” Bucky says. “I wasn’t...hell, Steve, I still ain’t. Me. Him.”

“Good enough for me,” Steve says. “Better than good.” He’s still got Bucky’s hand in his, the metal cool under his fingers. 

“Well,” Bucky says. “Betcha didn’t think I’d blow up the M.”

“You got me there,” Steve says. His grip tightens, echoed. Bucky’s thumb is smoothing over the veins at Steve’s wrist, a tender pressure. “We’ll add a codicil. Next time you blow up the subway, check to make sure you’re not under it first.”


	10. Chapter 10

Steve pulls out the contract while Bucky’s chatting to the girl at the counter. It’s Sunday, early enough that their coffee and bagels are breakfast, not brunch, and there are still a few empty tables. They’ve got the corner, tucked away, a wall at their backs and clear sight lines, although Bucky’s shoulders are relaxed and the girl’s laughing out loud at something’s he said. Steve’s used to waiting on Bucky and his girls, but it’s not long before Bucky picks up their order and carries it over. His smile is swift, unconscious, and fading fast.

“That what I think it is?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Now I know for sure it was you who wrote it.”

“Two weeks work,” Bucky says, sliding into place beside Steve. “Give or take. Spent a lot of time watching you through a scope.” He doesn’t reach for his coffee. He hasn’t glanced at his bagel, and he’d taken two or three minutes discussing cream cheese. 

“So far as I’m concerned, this stands as long as we do,” Steve says, very clear. 

Bucky nods back. 

“We’re not renegotiating,” Steve says. 

“Okay,” Bucky says. His voice is tight, but he’s not tense, the way he sometimes used to get at the beginning, when Steve used the wrong turn of phrase or the wrong tone of voice. They’d both learned.

“We’re assessing the situation,” Steve says.

“We are,” Bucky says. “Okay.” He leans back. “I’m fine. Which bit’s stuck in your craw, Rogers?”

“Thirty million dollars,” Steve says, although that’s not the question he’s got caged behind his teeth.

Bucky shrugs. “Escape fund,” he says. “Stark won’t miss it.” Under the table, his boot squeaks against the tiles. If Steve pushes, Bucky always confesses in the end.

“He knows where it’s gone,” Steve says. “He just won’t do anything about it. I took that money under false pretenses. And that’s wrong, Bucky.”

“Technically, I stole it,” Bucky says.

“Technically.”

Glaring, Bucky nods. “He’ll get it back. Are we done? I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere. If anything’s wrong, I’ll tell you. And you’ll tell me. Now can I eat my bagel?” He lifts it up, pointedly assessing the best place to start.

“Good enough for combat rations?” Steve asks, in what he hopes is an absolutely casual tone, not pointed at all.

Bucky bites down. “Yup,” he says, his mouth full. “Need more-” he swallows. “We need more of those hot chocolate powders, we’re out. And some cinnamon. Apart from that, we’re good.” 

He takes another bite. He’s holding the bagel in both hands, elbows out, leaning over the table. Bucky’s wearing one of Steve’s dress shirts, sleeves rolled up, and a white vest under it: his jeans are ripped, which Steve knows very well because under the table Bucky’s knee is pressed, warm and bony, against his. 

Steve frowns at his coffee.

“Steve,” Bucky says, and puts his bagel down. “If you really want, we can go through every clause, and I can tell you I’m fine, but why don’t you just ask me?”

“Clause fifteen,” Steve blurts out.

Bucky sighs. “I still got hopes,” he says. “It’s some kind of star-crossed love story. I get to be Mae West,” he says. 

“What?” Steve says.

“Haven’t got the bust to be Betty Grable,” Bucky explains. “I’m the one with the wise cracks. You can be Jean Arthur,” he says, generously.

Steve leans back. “Huh,” he says, folding his arms. “Buck – I thought I was Bogart.”

“Nah,” Bucky says. “Bogart never gets the girl.” He grins at Steve over the remains of his bagel. “Plus, you ain’t got the voice for it,” he says. “Shame they don’t make silent movies any more. I kinda miss – do you remember that pianist at the Alhambra? The one that played the organ at St Jude’s?”

“We could do that,” Steve says. “There must be somewhere that shows old movies.”

“Yeah?” Bucky says. “You gonna sit in the back row with me? Let me get fresh?”

“That wasn’t-” Steve shakes his head. “Buck, all you gotta do is smile. You don’t need me for that.”

Bucky flexes his gloved left hand.

“You think I care?” Steve says. “You think anyone else would? You could have anyone you wanted. You don’t have to settle.”

“Who said anything about settling?” Bucky says. “I told you – I’m doing it right this time around.” His smile’s a little wry. “There was only ever one fella I was gonna hang my hat up with,” he says. “Thought I might be getting somewhere, but turns out he’s a little gunshy.”

“‘Appropriate sexual release,’” Steve quotes. “You weren’t subtle.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky says. “I got a few years to make up.” 

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, and has to stop. “Hell, Bucky. You mean it?” 

Very carefully, Bucky sets his coffee aside. Then Steve’s. He reaches up and cups Steve’s face in his hand, the metal cool, smooth as silk. Bucky could punch out a tank with his fist, but his fingers are so light on Steve’s skin. He leans over, eyes open. It’s not far. Steve could move back. They could pass it off as horseplay.

“Bucky,” Steve says, hoarse, and Bucky kisses him. 

“Steve,” he says, “I mean it.” His breath is warm on Steve’s lips.

Steve kisses back. After a moment he catches Bucky’s shoulder to pull him closer. Kisses his bottom lip, his chin, the little curl at the corner of his mouth, tugs his hand down and kisses the knuckles one by one as Bucky stares back, eyes wide. Then his mouth again, harder, until Bucky shudders and opens his mouth against Steve’s-

“We can’t do this here,” Steve says. “Come on. We’re leaving.” He’s got Bucky by the arm, tugging him up, fumbles out his wallet one-handed and tugs out more than enough dollars to cover. “What’s your best time back from here?” He’s holding the door open. 

Bucky ducks under his arm and kisses him again on the step. “Fifteen forty,” he says, shaking his head, but his smile, his smile is incredulous and so very happy.

“Make it fourteen,” Steve says, grabs Bucky’s hand, and starts running.


	11. Chapter 11

Steve’s laughing so hard he can’t stand upright. “Ah, stop! Stop!” he pleads.

“Pax?” Bucky asks. His fingers are merciless, and he hasn’t forgotten a single ticklish spot on Steve’s body. 

“Pax! Yes!” Steve gasps. He can hardly believe it when Bucky’s hands flatten out, palming his hips instead of prodding his sides, and Steve can catch his breath. They’re so close – so easily close, curving into each other, Steve leaning into Bucky’s shoulder, Bucky’s head bent over Steve’s. 

“Gotcha,” Bucky says, tugging Steve up and kissing him on the way. 

They roll into the door frame. Then the wall. Steve’s not even sure where his feet are, but he knows where Bucky is, close as he can be, lips to lips, his chest against Bucky’s and their thighs braced. Steve’s hard, a magical, intoxicating heat he can rock against Bucky’s belly and his hips, knowing Bucky feels the same. They’re flirting with their bodies, shifting and turning, learning what feels good and unwilling to give an inch of ground. Steve drops Bucky into a dip that only half-works, neither of them are ballroom dancers, and then Bucky spins Steve around and pins him by the wall next to the clock. 

“You wanna do the jelly roll, Rogers?” Bucky says in his ear. “Got the horn? Gonna open the bank for me?” 

He’s sniggering as he says it, but his hips are pressed tight into Steve’s, the weight of his body heated, and he’s hard and clearly adamant he wants Steve to know. His metal hand curls around the nape of Steve’s neck, thumb tucked under Steve’s ear where the skin is fine and sensitive, and his flesh hand has tucked itself under Steve’s chest, fingers cupping his pecs. He’s got his chin tucked into Steve’s neck, warm and close as he can be. Steve doesn’t know if he wants to lean into that grip or back into Bucky’s hips. He’s still breathless, light-headed from giggling, tries to push back, bunches his shoulder muscles to get there and Bucky leans back and bites him through cloth, a heated, stinging brand across his shoulder-blade.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Everything.”

Bucky’s hands tighten. “We ain’t doin’ anything here,” he says. “This ain’t no two-dollar knee-trembler. I gotta treat you right.”

“Lemme up, then,” Steve says, twisting. “And if you ever paid out two dollars for a – I don’t wanna hear about it.”

“I’m saving all my sugar for my sweet,” Bucky says, sly and drawling.

Steve would protest, but Bucky’s gone for one last open-mouthed, urgent kiss, almost businesslike, and then he’s pulling off. “Bed,” he says.

Steve ducks his head, feints right, and snatches Bucky up, all steel and hiccuping laughter and offended dignity, carrying him down the hall into the bedroom. Bucky doesn’t go quietly – “Steve, lemme down, lemme _down!_ ” – and they end up tripping over Steve’s slippers and smacking down onto the mattress. Steve yelps, Bucky grunts, and the bed gives an ominous creak they both decide to ignore. Steve gets his bearings on the mattress and rolls over. He takes Bucky with him on the way, catching the curve of his hipbone and brushing up the muscles of his back, holding him on top, amazed at how easy it is to touch skin to skin, how good Bucky feels. This time, Bucky goes easily. He’s still laughing, his broad grin flashing white, hair falling in his eyes. “Pushy bastard,” he says, deeply fond. His knee’s caught under Steve’s thigh, and when Bucky rolls his hips this time – the curve of the small of his back flexing, beautiful, under Steve’s fingers – his dick nudges and strokes against Steve’s. There’s no hiding it now. Steve is steel hard. 

“Ahhh...” Bucky says, shuddering, and his eyes close as he ducks his head. 

His mouth’s open. Steve cranes up, clumsily catches Bucky’s lower lip between his own, and finds himself amazed all over again by how soft and hot he finds Bucky’s skin. How fiercely alive – he can feel the muscles tighten as Bucky gasps, the shivering rush of his breath, the need that opens Bucky’s mouth against his. Their teeth clash. Bucky’s tongue tangles with his, forceful and greedy. He licks Steve’s teeth, the roof of his mouth, a teasing stroke Bucky can’t complete – he gasps again as Steve grips his hips. “Multi- word for it unfair,” he mutters.

Steve rolls them both over again and sits up, perched on Bucky’s hips, his knees either side of Bucky’s chest, Bucky’s dick a heated pressure against Steve’s balls. Steve’s so hot. His skin feels sensitized, aching, and he’s still in his hoodie and Bucky’s shirt – his shirt – has too many buttons. He drags at them, tugging, and Bucky helps him with clumsy, uncoordinated fingers. Fiercely aware of that _appropriate_ , Steve mutters. “Tell me it’s okay, tell me this is what you want.”

“I got a piece of paper with both of our names on it saying we get to do this forever,” Bucky says. “You got me, Rogers? I ain’t taking it back.” He’s shrugged off his vest. His hand’s under Steve’s hoodie, metal to flesh, over Steve’s heart. “Yours.”

“Always,” Steve says. He wants to hold Bucky’s hand against his skin, has to strip off his clothes to do it, and it’s when he’s blinded for an instant that Bucky’s flesh hand closes over his dick. He feels as if he’s been shocked, an electric bolt that shoots through his balls and tightens his ass, crackles up his spine and down to his toes. “Fuck,” Steve grits out. It’s impossible. But it’s real – when he’s struggled out of his hoodie, Bucky looks up at him still laughing, his hair splayed out on Steve’s pillows and his pupils wide in the blue of his eyes. 

“Knew you had it in you,” he huffs, and cups his palm, pressing back, but his eyes are still on Steve’s.

Steve’s back arches. His hips are rocking. His dick throbs, peremptory , and his jeans scratch against his thighs and bulge at his crotch, placket gaping as the zip strains. He manages a hoarse, “Huh, huh, huh.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and lets his eyes drop. “Give me your hand. Show me what you can do.”

“Bucky!” People don’t – people don’t do that in front of each other, Steve thinks, it’s intimate, it’s private, he’s never – but Bucky’s- it’s always been Bucky on his mind.

“Steve,” Bucky says. He licks his lips, looks up. “I wanna see,” he says. “See how to make it good for you. Gonna-” He’d been clumsy on his own clothing, but his fingers on the button and zip of Steve’s jeans are deft and forceful. “C’mon,” Bucky croons. “C’mon, lemme look at you.” He’s pushing Steve’s underwear down with the denim. “Jesus H. Christ, Steve, s’fucking-” 

Dizzy, winded, Steve lets himself lean forward, hands on Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky’s eyes come up to his, as wide open and as astonished as Steve feels. They’re looking at each other when Bucky closes his hand around Steve’s bare dick. “Pucker up,” he says, and strokes.

Steve’s elbows give out. He has to tumble sideways not to fall on Bucky, and suddenly there’s skin everywhere, his shoulder against Bucky’s, their ankles clashing and Bucky’s thighs pressing into his, Bucky shoving his pants down and grabbing his own dick, metal glinting. Bucky tangling his flesh hand in Steve’s to drag their grip downwards. “Stop!”

“Please,” Bucky says.

'He wants this,' Steve thinks, wondering, awed. “I-” he begins, and he’s loosened his hold. Their joined hands move, very slowly, and then close around his dick. “Ah!”

But Bucky doesn’t move. His fingers are tight around Steve’s. Very sure, as familiar as Steve’s own and as strange and wonderful as a miracle. “Okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Steve manages. He has to shut his eyes against the terrifying intimacy. “Yeah. Yes. Oh, Bucky.” 

It’s nothing like his own clumsy haste. His hand is shaky, uncertain, and after the first hesitant strokes Bucky murmurs at him, wordless reassurance, and takes charge. Bucky’s strokes are long and smooth, and he rolls his palm of the head of Steve’s dick as their fingers move. Steve can feel every separate fleshy pad, the catch of Bucky’s gun calluses and the breadth of his palm – Steve’s fingers are longer, but Bucky’s palms are broad and solid, working hands. Rocking with every stroke, Steve’s hips are shifting beyond his control. Every inch of his skin is flushed, sweat dripping down his back and under his arms, his nipples so tight they ache, his teeth clenching, his toes curling. He clings to Bucky’s shoulder, riding out sensation. He’s gasping for breath, has been for a while, but when his breath catches and it sounds as if he’s about to wheeze Bucky slows.

“Steve?” Bucky says. “солнце. Steve.” He untangles their hands, cups Steve’s face, kisses him. Kisses him again. “Steve. Okay?”

Steve opens his eyes. “Other hand?” he asks.

“...Well, fuck,” Bucky says. His head has gone back. He swallows, Adam’s apple ducking along the strong curve of his throat. “Yeah. Move over for me.”

It’s even better. The sliding, heating metal of Bucky’s fist, plates smooth as silk, the tiny catch at every joint a minute, singing spark of pain, is just as astoundingly arousing as his flesh hand. But leaning against Bucky’s side Steve gets to watch him stroke himself as well, the deep flush of his dick and the powerful grip of his flesh hand – Bucky is rougher with himself than he is with Steve – and the glistening drops of pre-come caught in the strong dark hairs on his belly. Steve has one hand buried in Bucky’s hair, the other – Steve finds he’s urging Bucky on, tightening his grips, pushing for more. Bucky’s chest is heaving, sweat lining his collar-bones and the hollow of his throat, and his eyes are dark and wide.

“Gonna-”

“Yes,” Steve says. It’s as loud as an order. 

Bucky comes. His head goes back, his spine curls in, shoulders rounding, hips jerking. It’s Steve’s name he cries out, and his metal hand clenches. “Steve!”

He's left Steve behind. Steve has never wanted to come so badly and never wanted to hold off so much, watching Bucky shiver, eyes closed, face flushed, so very dear and so beautiful, as striking as a blow to the heart. He grits his teeth, but he can feel his climax rising, wild and implacable, and he can’t stop it, can’t – “Bucky!” he hears himself cry out, and then the syllables break down into a long, stuttering “Bucky Bucky Buck-” He lets go of himself and reaches out to hold Bucky close, closer, never close enough, coming helpless and transcended, rubbing down into the sticky warm mess on Bucky’s stomach, just conscious of Bucky’s hands holding him tight.

It’s a very long time before either of them can let go.


	12. Chapter 12

“So,” Sam says. “I get the feeling being out of uniform is not an option.” He’s drawling, a little ironic despite the amount of maple syrup he’s ingested with his pancakes.

“Still busy,” Steve says. 

“Yeah, I get that,” Sam says, and lets his eyes slide towards the easel by the window, past the mess of the vintage gun parts and metal working tools on Bucky’s worktable and the pile of books neither of them have got round to stacking on the bookshelves. Steve’s running shoes are tangled up with the all-terrain boots Bucky insists on wearing, by the door. There’s a dartboard on the wall they shipped over from London. Bucky keeps sticking pictures of people he dislikes over the bullseye and stabbing them full of holes, he says it’s a healthy unhealthy way of expressing his anger, and Steve says, “Really, Buck?” and winces every time he walks past. 

Their mission plan is cycling on the laptop, a leisurely, devastating, cauterizing project. It’s going well.

“Added a few terms and conditions,” Steve says, and he’s smiling. He’s smiling a lot these days, at Sam, at his team, at Bucky.

“Yeah,” Sam says. He adds, “Barnes mentioned the boxing club,” 

“Yeah?” Steve can’t help the rush of embarrassed pride. Bucky had came home one night and said he’d met a guy in a bar, and the Union Club was looking for volunteers. Bucky mostly, because Steve, now he’s really running the Avengers and not just marking time with SHIELD, has developed a disconcerting sympathy for Colonel Philips. “They’re good kids,” he says, although what he’s thinking of is Bucky’s proud grin.

“That’s what you get out of this conversation?” Sam says.

“What?”

“Uh-uh,” Sam says, and taps his fork on the plate. “What you get from this conversation is that bit where Barnes voluntarily talked about something the pair of you were doing that did not involve the M word.” 

“I know you do brunch,” Steve says.

“Yeah! We do brunch!” Sam says. “I am the cool one with the shades and the macchiato. He’s the one that grunts and gets the phone numbers. Dude, this is _unfair_. But it’s cool! It’s okay! I know you guys talk! But the day he sat down and said, ‘D’you think it’s to soon to enter Desiree for the under 12s?’ I ordered bacon.”

“You order bacon every time,” Steve says. He’d cooked a whole stack, but there’s only one slice left. “And I know you’re dating.”

“Two orders,” Sam says, eyeing that last rasher. “And that’s not the point.”

“He made the right call,” Steve says, “She didn’t win, but she hung on in there. And she kept it clean.”

Sam stares at him, swipes a hand over his hair, and says, “I give up.”

“Clause twenty-seven,” Steve says. He stands up, starts stacking plates and cutlery. “It’s the one about extra-curricular activities. I think – yeah. We’re good.” Steve woke up this morning with Bucky’s fingers tangled in his own and Bucky snuffling into the back of his neck, his hair feathered soft against Steve’s ears. It was better than good. It was a goddamn miracle.

“I see that smile,” Sam says. “Okay, soldier. I take it all back. Just spare me the details.”

“It’s just...” Steve reaches for the dishcloth. “Normal,” he says.

The front door slams. “Hey, Steve!” Bucky shouts from the hallway. “D’you reckon Stark’s got room for a T-34?”

Reflected in the window, Sam’s eyebrows go up. “Really?”

“Because there’s – oh, hey, Sam,” Bucky says, appearing in the doorway. “Whaddaya think? There’s one on craigslist. Needs some work.”

“What are we going to do with a tank?” Steve asks over his shoulder, sponging the bacon fat off the pan. 

“Dunno,” Bucky says. He shrugs. “Might come in useful. Weekend project.”

“You know,” Sam says. “Most people...nope.”

Bucky grabs the last slice of bacon, swift and casual, and drops a kiss in the crook of Steve’s neck as he passes. His metal arm is briefly fierce around Steve’s chest. “Steve,” he says, very quiet.

“Buck,” Steve says. He leans into Bucky’s warmth, an acknowledgement that still shivers his skin. “A tank. Bucky.”

“Always wanted a tank,” Bucky says wistfully. He sighs, bacon-scented, into the back of Steve’s neck, and mutters, “Coffee.” But it’s still a moment or two before he moves away. “Could add in a few tricks. Lighten up the armor. Betcha if we cut down a few hundredweight we could take it to town - those armor plated cars aren’t half bad, but a T-34-” The coffee machine hisses. “It’s got style.” 

Steve props the clean pan on the draining board and dries off his hands. 

“Don’t look at me,” Sam warns. 

“Hobbies are healthy,” Bucky says. Passing Sam a refill, Bucky’s not even looking down. His eyes are on Steve’s face, all disingenuous, wicked charm. “We could get the kids down. Teach them some.”

Steve nods, slowly. It sounds a perfectly reasonable idea if, say, Bucky was talking about a 1950s Cadillac and not twenty-six and a half tonnes of 1940s Soviet war materiel. “If you get a tank,” Steve says, “I get a flying car.”

“Guys,” Sam says. “Guys.”

Bucky’s mouth drops open. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Found it boxed up in Tony’s workshop,” Steve says. “He said he didn’t know it was there and it’s fine if we take a look, which means we’ll have to pick it up in the next few hours or it’ll have sub-orbital thrusters,”

Bucky blinks. “When do we start?”

“Today?” Steve says. “Now? Sam, you in?”

“You are - oh, what the hell,” Sam says, surrendering, hands in the air. “You guys need a wingman, right?”

Bucky high-fives him metal to flesh, cocks an eyebrow at Steve and warns, “Tank. Don’t you think I’ll forget, Steve Rogers.”

“I know you won’t,” Steve says, and smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a little odd putting end notes on when still posting, but Sat/Sun are going to be post and run days. So, endnote:
> 
> Thank you, so much, to everyone who has read (and I am a reticent reader too, I appreciate you!), kudos'd or commented on this story as it was posted. It was lovely to see people liking something incomplete, and as - eh, I haven't posted a WIP since 2004 and that was to mailing list! So this has been amazing, kicked me into actually finishing a WIP, and I'm truly so grateful for your support. Thank you.
> 
> Particular thanks are due otherwise to unovis, who suggested Jean Arthur when I was really struggling (I want Doris Day! I whined to her across the Atlantic). pir8fancier's iconic [Snape: The Home Fries Nazi](http://pir8fancier.nfshost.com/harrypotter/hp_hfn.html) is of course referenced by "short order chef in Nebraska". And I need to mention Norman Maclean, whose deeply humane _Young Men and Fire_ I was reading when this story was nothing more than its first chapter, and whose description of the US Forest Services Standard Fire Fighting Orders in the 1950s, and their derivation from the Pacific War Marine Code of Conduct, led directly to Bucky's contract.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
